From The Examiner
Sarah Murnaghan, an 10-year-old girl with Cystic Fibrosis, was given a second chance at life after a federal judge forced Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to allow the child to be on the list for a potentially life saving lung transplant.
Today, CNS News reports that after a double-lung transplant, Sarah
'was awake Friday and responding to questions by nodding to indicate yes or no. Two days earlier, she was moved from a heavy-duty breathing machine to a traditional ventilator.'
Murnaghan was given a grim diagnosis of only 'weeks to live' by doctors, as reported by John Hayward of Human Events earlier this month, but since she was not yet twelve, she was not eligible to be on the organ transplant list. The little girl unwittingly became the poster child for the argument that physicians and families alone should be responsible for individual health decisions, which should not be subjected to judgment from bureaucratic 'experts'.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius famously defended the federal government's position 'that puts children under age 12 at the bottom of the list of those who can receive donated adult lungs,' as reported by Brett Norman and Jason Millman of Politico earlier this month.
While testifying during a House hearing, Sebelius responded to Rep. Lou Barletta, who pleaded with the HHS Secretary on behalf of Sarah Murnaghan to 'suspend the rules until we look at this policy,' by saying,
“I would suggest, sir, that, again, this is an incredibly agonizing situation where someone lives and someone dies...”
Barletta countered that Murnaghan's physicians believe that the child could survive an adult lung transplant. Fortunately for Sarah, a judge ordered Sebelius to make an exception. Clearly, the little girl is not out of the woods, but now she has a fighting chance. As Hayward noted, 'And a lot of someones owe Sarah Palin a huge apology for doubting her prescient warning aboutdeath panels.'
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